XLers Unlimited

Sandra Mahadwar (IR 86) has been selected to receive a 2008 YWCA of Silicon Valley Tribute to Women Award (TWIN) and will be honored at an Awards Dinner on Thursday, May 15th at 6:00 p.m. at the Fairmont Hotel in downtown San Jose.

The Tribute to Women Awards Program is in its 24th year and has long been considered one of Silicon Valley's most prestigious awards. The purpose of the Tribute to Women Awards Program is to honor both wom en who exemplify excellence in executive-level positions and the companies who employ them. She has been nominated by John Kispert for this award based on the outstanding achievements and critical contributions she has made to her company. 

From the Telegraph

XLRI School of Business and Human Resources is set to get deemed university status.

XLRI director Father N. Casimir Raj told The Telegraph: “UGC has agreed in principle to grant us deemed university status.”

He, however, clarified that that though a verbal assurance has come from the University Grants Commission, the business school is yet to receive a formal notification.

“UGC has verbally told us that in principle they agree to our proposal for deemed university status which was sent about a year ago. Now we will pursue the matter so that the written confirmation reaches as soon as possible. We will then apply for a no-objection certificate (NOC),” Fr Raj said.

An NOC from the state government is a must for any institute to begin autonomous operations.

At present, Birla Institute of Technology (BIT), Mesra, and Indian School of Mines, Dhanbad, are the other deemed universities in the state.

From the XLRI blog:

With domestic stipends reaching astronomical heights of Rs. 5 Lakhs (Lehman Brothers), the process resulted in the batch of 2009 being placed in exclusive roles with the best companies in the industry, both from India and abroad. Lehman Brothers, J P Morgan Chase, Hay and Microsoft offered stipends of more than a lakh (for domestic offers), while Novartis, HUL, ABG, P&G, Transworld, Asian Paints and ICICI made foreign offers. HSBC, Ernst & Young, ABG, Edelweiss, Deloitte Consulting, IBM and Nokia were the largest recruiters this year with the highest number of accepted offers. Other premier recruiters include Carlyle, Accenture Business Consulting, KPMG, TAS, Yahoo etc.

• Highest Domestic Stipend of Rs 5 Lakhs by Lehman Investment Banking
• Highest International Stipend of Rs 1.75 Lakhs by Novartis
• Around 10 overseas offers were made from Novartis, HUL, ABG, P&G, Transworld, Asian Paints and ICICI
• 2/3^rd of the batch placed in Slot 1 in less than 36 hours
• First time recruiters in the Financial sector include Lehman Investment Banking, 8 Capital Hedge Fund, Indea Capital, Lotus Asset Management etc
• 20 companies took part in the process for the First time
• 60+ companies made internship offers to the batch

PG rated ;-)

Maria Sharapova, Katrina Kaif, Sania Mirza are also XL ki Kudiyan ;-) ?

From the Business Standard:

Beginning November this year, a series of courses at XLRI will train managers in manpower planning, recruitment and selection, performance, career and succession management, managing and coping with the trauma associated with mergers and acquisitions, technological change, training, development and redeployment problems, retention and motivation strategies, empowerment and team-building, redundancy and downsising.

According to XLRI officials, the success of managerial efforts largely depend on the executives’ ability to develop and sustain team-spirit among the people under his or her care, both as a team member as well as a team leader.

The interpersonal skills for building and working in teams, and for managing conflicts, become essential prerequisites for managers as team leaders.

The new courses are therefore designed to help participants learn how to manage their own styles and orientations, while influencing others as leaders in their teams.

The courses will also help to understand the dynamics of peoples’ interaction within team members and to develop skills for working with others and leading teams.

Moreover, with the rapid growth of information technology , information systems has evolved to become the core of many organisations’ competitive strategies.

In the business standard

XLRI will help Chhattisgarh in drafting a management policy for better utilisation of human resources available in the state.


The State Institute of Educational Management and Training (SIEMAT) will be the nodal agency to coordinate with XLRI in drafting the policy. XLRI will complete the work in six months and will assign three experts to complete the work within stipulated time, Nandkumar added.

From the XLRI blog:

Head honchos from the FMCG giant Proctor & Gamble (P&G) visited XLRI today to select a winning idea which could give them big returns in the global market.

The move comes in wake of P&G taking over the popular men’s brand Gillette globally.

Significantly, XLRI was the only B-school that the FMCG giant approached.

The contest, named “The Big Leap”, saw an enthusiastic participation from 33 groups at XLRI, out of which seven ideas were finally selected for today’s presentation by the FMCG major. The event was aimed at the analysis of various management-related issues involved in the acquisition of Gillette by P&G.

But what marked the highlight of the entire event was that the four-member jury from the multinational — comprising Varun Bhatia, VP (HR), Asia Pacific region, Mohit Nayyar, country HR manager India, Sonali Roychowdhury, senior HR manager India and Surya Rai, HR manager products and supply — were all former XLRI students. For the jury, it was a homecoming.

Who says budding managers are not creative and poetic people. Check the sample of writings that the following folks from the 08 and 09 batch cooked up as part of Oktoberfest in XLRI. Seems like good fun was had by all. Writings are hosted on the Dracula blog...which is not so much an ode to the Prince of Transylvania but the Dramatics and Cultural Association of XLRI ;-)


Seniors

Kailash
Seema Narera/Bharath Rao
Shivani Nigam
Sonali Ahuja (2nd Place!)
Swati Jena

Juniors

Tushar Kataria
Ramakrishna
Kartheek Kanumuru
Srinivas
Krishna Bhaskar
Ankur Sawhney (1st Place!)
Ankur Sawhney
Mukund Madhav

In Businessworld on why organizations follow a herd mentality:

A lot of opportunities spring up when a new sector is opened. Many try to exploit this. Since the sector is new, there are no benchmarks. Capability issues arise only later.

The retail sector, for example. More than 95 per cent of the sector is unorganised. The organised players think that even if they capture 5-10 per cent of the unorganised market, it would be great business. But there are too many unknowns. The strategy that worked in other developed markets may not apply in India.

And in Business Line on how HR education and HR professionals are developing:

Companies do look for trained HR professionals to handle HR roles. More often than not, if the role is assigned to a non-HR executive, the reason is not because of the quality of HR professionals, but the dearth of HR professionals.

Most companies do try to provide training to non-HR people through job-shadowing, nomination to HR courses and so on when they are given HR roles. In fact, this need has also sprouted some innovative partnerships between industry and academia. For instance, at XLRI we have two such partnerships, one with Accenture and the other with L&T, to conduct long-duration certification courses in HR. I think one of the challenges for the education sector will be to keep pace with the demand for HR professionals, both in terms of quality and quantity.

As a fast-growing economy, the HR exposure that India provides is unthinkable in more mature Western industrial economies. To deliver value in the contemporary scenario, HR managers have to think out-of-the-box and innovate new practices and systems. I think it is this requirement and capability, which differentiates the Indian HR professionals from their Western counterparts.

In more developed economies, HR requirements are comparatively more stable and, correspondingly, the role of HR professionals more process-driven. In comparison, Indian HR professionals have to be innovative and build HR processes around those innovations.

The changes in the demands on HR are not just in knowledge-based industries. HR requirements in the manufacturing sector also are no longer what they used to be. Earlier, the primary task of HR was maintenance of the system because manufacturing companies themselves were stable, showing slow growth or change. What we see now is a spurt of restructuring, mergers, international forays through expansion and acquisitions and upgrading of technology in the manufacturing sector. In addition, there is a migration of talent from manufacturing to the service/ knowledge sector, just when the sector requires them.

even at a very conservative estimate we are looking at least 5 million new jobs in the next five years. And a quick calculation would show that even if we need one HR professional for 1,000 employees (which by itself is a pathetic ratio), one needs at least 5,000 new HR professionals.

On the supply-side, the situation is far from comfortable. Among the few educational institutes that provide specialised HR courses — XLRI, TISS, SCMHRD, MDI — the total number of students do not add to more than 250-300 per annum, and many of them join HR consultancies rather than industry.

This is one big gap which the HR fraternity, in industry and academia, should be worried about. I don’t think it will be feasible for educational institutions to suddenly scale up their numbers to meet this demand.

Jishnu Dasgupta, joins the Indian Folk/Fusion Band Swarathma as bassist. The music is an earthy mix of Carnatic Classical, Indian folk and Rock.

Check out the music at www.swarathma.com

Bangalore junta could into Radio One 94.3 FM every afternoon to hear them

The Times of India group has started a competition for selecting a national political leader for India who would be eventually trained in the John F. Kennedy School of Political Leadership. Post-training he/she would be provided with seed funding/media support to contest Lok Sabha
elections in India. Two XLers have reached the regional finals who would eventually go through to the National finals –

• Mr. Sandeep Agarwal
• Ms. Aparna Banerjee

This rounds winners would be determined on the basis of votes received by the candidates through online or SMS voting. You can vote for them by clicking here: http://lead.timesofindia.com/voteing_Kolkata.asp or sending in a SMS. To know more about the contest and selection process, please click here: http://lead.timesofindia.com/selection_process.asp

Nisha Millet (the national swimming champ) in Bangalore list is the daughter of Aubrey Millet, XLer of 72 batch.

Abhiji Bhaduri recounts on the MBA Orkut community:

It is official. I am going with HarperCollins. I voted in favour of HarperCollins to publish my novel MARRIED BUT AVAILABLE. I will be working with VK Karthika, Publisher and Chief Editor. I thought you guys should be the first to know the great news.

Married but Available is the story of Abbey's first 10 years after graduating from MIJ ;-)

BP Rao's blog hits it big :-)

I am delighted to find that the Most Popular Outgoing Link and the 2nd Most Popular Outgoing Link in Enewss, today are my posts on Indra Nooyi ( September 16) and Connecting India ( September 25) respectively.

XLRI to roll out new courses for managers:

"XLRI Jamshedpur, the school of business and human resources, plans to offer a number of courses this fiscal for senior and middle-level managers.

The B-school, for instance, has designed a course for executives and owners of large- and medium-sized enterprises that are in the process of expanding their operations overseas. According to XLRI officials, there are many instances that led to the designing of the course - the recent ones being the takeovers of Arcelor and Corus by Mittal and Tata Steel, respectively."

XLRI Documentary - Reminiscence 2007



NDTV profit interviews XLRI students for India GenNext



and part 2

Abhijit Bhaduri (PMIR 84) Head of HR at PepsiCo lets us know:

I have played a small role in the film Apna Asmaan. I play Ravi's (played by Irrfan) boss in the office. The film stars Shobhna, Irrfan, Anupam Kher and Rajat Kapur (Bheja Fry fame). The film is about how each one of us has our own little piece of the sky to touch and paint. A heartwarming film. It has won the gold at the International Festival in Stuttgart and now entering the film fest in Argentina. The film is currently playing in theatres. Hope your town has it too.

Have any of you seen it? It is such a strange feeling to see oneself on screen.

Pics from the movie are here. It was earlier called Qatra Qatra Jeene Do

Dear XLers

I have pleasure in enclosing a cordial invitation to attend the first Anniversary of our Ma Foi Foundation (MFF) in Chennai on the 26^th Sept 2007.

We presently have adopted 1130 poor children from the Sivakasi and Chennai areas from 46 schools – they get scholarship, mentorship and career education from 5^th standard to college completion ( Rs 1200 pa upto 10^th std, Rs 1500 pa during higher secondary and Rs 5000 pa during college). All our Corporate Social Responsibility efforts have been integrated under MFF since last Sept. We run a School for the underprivileged in Chennai with about 650 children. We have taken micro-finance to about 8000 women through Self-Help Group and fostered about 450 tiny enterprises. We also run a network of about 172 NGO’s under the CIOSA (Confederation of Indian Organisations for Service and Advocacy) banner. We have also recognized 10 Young Achievers (unmined gems) every year during this function. You can get more details about this in www.themafoifoundation.org

The function will start at 6.30 pm and will see a creative expression by some of our Disha Scholars, recognition of achievements, performance by young artists led by Abhaswaram Ramji/Venky (Venky Monkey fame) and networking. I look forward to your support and wishes,

Regards,

K Pandiarajan (84BMD)

Leena Nair
37/ Executive Director (HR), Hindustan Unilever
Education: BE Electronics and MBA from XLRI
Work Experience: 15 years
Career High: First woman ED at HUL
Hobbies: Bollywood movies, reading, outdoor sports and travelling
Success Mantra: Look for a win-win in every situation

It's a hat trick, in some sense. Leena Nair isn't just the first woman to make it to Hindustan Unilever's Management Committee (mc), but also the youngest Executive Director (ED) and that too one in charge of not a profit centre, but human resources. As the HR boss, Nair heads a team of 250 people who look into the well-being of about 15,000 employees across 70 different locations in the country, including 45 factories and four regional offices.

The 37-year-old Nair joined Hindustan Lever (as it was known until recently) straight out of XLRI, Jamshedpur, 15 years ago, and has risen quickly through the ranks. From being a factory personnel manager to management development planning manager to hr manager for the detergents business, Nair has been there, done that. But how does it feel to become the youngest and only woman Executive Director on the mc in HUL's history? "It is definitely a big honour for me because HUL is not just a big organisation with a great history and heritage, but (my elevation is) also a testimony to how much hr is valued here," says the tall and trim Nair.

She could say that again. Until recently, in most organisations, hr didn't get a seat at the high table. For one, hr wasn't seen as a profit centre and, for another, it was not considered strategic enough. But with talent becoming scarce and the only real differentiator at most companies, boards are waking up to the strategic importance of human resources. No wonder, Nair says her challenge is straightforward. "We have to do well and excel to make a difference to the organisation. My team must also make a difference to excellence in hr in the company and in the country," she says.

On staying put at the FMCG giant, Nair says, "When your job is interesting and you are feeling stretched and challenged, and when you have great bosses and you are working with talented people, you don't want to leave." HUL must be hoping that she can spread the same kind of enthusiasm around the organisation.

For all XLers who are on Facebook, here's where you need to join in.

Hope Orkut junkies are already on the Orkut XL community there.

Nihal blogs about recent happenings:

A closely guarded secret before the event each year was the T shirt slogan that was to be used by the players. Given the amount of underutilized grey matter on either side there was always an interesting pun involved. So while XL used slogans like “Only XLence matters the rest is IIMmaterial” IIM-C would go with slogans like “Always a size bigger than XL”

After a series of particularly explosive events over the last 2 years (one involving an IIMCian dropping his pants in full public view) the event has been suspended. From this year onwards IIM Calcutta is experimenting with the feasibility of running a similar event with IIM Bangalore.

The Interesting thing is that IIM C has decided to stay with the T Shirt tradition. Here is a quote that came off an XL Yahoogroup.

Trust the jokArs (IIMCians) to come up with something like this....!!!The IIMC tshirt for the " B Versus C" (IIM-B vs IIM-C) meet this year had following slogan:"And we thought there could B no one worse than XL....",And just below that it was written :"IIM Calcutta". ;-)

From MBAUniverse

Finance Chairperson and faculty at XLRI Jamshedpur Prof. Pitabas Mohanty has joined the big league of finance thinkers.

According to XLRI, he will be the new co-authored of finance classic Principles of Corporate Finance along with Brealey, Myers and Allen. This text book is considered a Bible in the world of corporate finance, and used by leading institutions all over the world. Its three other authors are Richard A Brealey of London Business School, Stewart C Myers of MIT and Franklin Allen of University of Pennsylvania.

Says XLRI, "It is indeed a matter of great honour to have one of our professors to co-author such an illustrious book."

Prof. Pitabas Mohanty is a Fellow of the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore. A Gold Medallist in MA (Applied Economics), he is also a Chartered Financial Analyst and a cost accountant.

Prof Mohanty has also co-authored another prestigious book Investments along with Bodie, Kane and Marcus. Prof Mohanty has won the Best Young Teacher Award from AIMS in 2002. He has also won the first prize for two consecutive years in the Capital Markets Conference organized by the UTI Institute of Capital Markets. He has also got the prestigious Citibank Research Excellence Award in IIM Bangalore.

Principles of Corporate Finance, a leading text book in the corporate finance area, was first published in 1983. It is known for its intuitive, conversational style and for being able to tie together many of the important ideas in corporate finance.

From MBA Universe

Outlook B-School Survey 2007: IIM-A, XLRI, FMS and IRMA top league tables

Leading news magazine Outlook released its annual B-School survey, conducted by research firm Cfore.

For the first time, the survey has classified B-Schools into four categories: Government/ PSU B-Schools, Private B-Schools, University Departments and Sectoral B-Schools. The Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIM-A); XLRI Jamshedpur; Delhi University’s Faculty of Management Studies (FMS); and the Indian Institute of Rural Management (IRMA) have topped respective league tables. The survey notes that while IIMs are still on top, many aggressive private B-schools are fast catching up. Says the Survey, “The most important development has been the initiative of private institutes in critical areas such as research, entrepreneurship and innovation. Although some are still behind the top IIMs in terms of overall scores, non-government schools are catching up fast.”

In the government-assisted B-Schools, IIM-A, IIM-B, IIM-C, IIM-L and Management Development Institute (MDI) Gurgaon have grabbed the first five slots. Mumbai-based NITIE, Delhi-based IIFT, and IIT Mumbai’s SJM-SOM are other B-schools to find place in this table. (See tables below)

It’s in the Top 10 private B-schools table where the competition is intense. XLRI tops the list; Mumbai-based SP Jain Institute of Management and NMIMS are followed by IMT, Ghaziabad and Hydeabad-based ICFAI Business School (IBS). XIM-Bhubaneshwar, IMT Delhi and Symbiosis Pune too find places in this table.

Delhi University’s FMS tops the University Department based B-schools. Mumbai-based Jamna Lal Bajaj Institute of Management (JBIMS) and University Business School (UBS) Chandigarh are the other top B-schools in this category.

The Survey provides rankings to 14 government institutes, 50 private B-schools, 10 University departments, and 7 sectoral B-schools.

While the overall ranking tables are presented by institute classifications, the Survey offers some insights into how top B-schools stack up when compared across the spectrum. IIM-A, IIM-B, IIM-C, XLRI and MDI, for instance, are ranked as top five B-schools on the ‘Industry interface’ parameter. On the important parameter of ‘Placement Performance’, IIM-A, IIM-C, IIM-B, XLRI and IIM-L are ranked on top.

You can see what's going on here

If you want to know where XL is being mentioned in the media you just need to look at the right hand sidebar on this blog !

Click on the Pic below to reach

XL Photo & Text Now and Then

I realised that I hadn't blogged these pictures that were clicked in January when I was visiting GLIM in January as a judge for their HR competition.

This picture was clicked just before the start of the HR case studies. Seated on the right is Niti Singh, Consulting Engagement Manager, Gallup India.

This was a get-together which just about did not happen. Initially, planned for 30th March evening, my travel agent threw spanner in the works, when he handed me the tickets (as usual, on the last minute!). The Heathrow-Mumbai flight which was supposed to departing "late night" was actually scheduled at 2130hrs GMT (my hypothesis is that the guy must be giving me the Indian time all through)...

In any case, the preponement to 29th March evening had some casualities - being a Thursday evening, some had to drop-out. But nevertheless, we were still about 15-20 people... and so, thanks to Reena Dayal (93PMIR), who hosted the evening, we could finally meet on 29th March in London.

So here are some pix of the get-togther... batches ranging from 91 to 04













By the time, I could make my way back to Oxford, it was 2am and a freezing 1C... but what a wonderful evening! ..worth each moment, meeting, sip and munch :0)

Postscript: Since you have reached upto here, I might as well take the advantage and share this pix also.. of another meeting (by sheer chance) that happened on the sidewalk of Broad Street in Oxford the previous day...

... Meeting the Nobel Peace Prize 2006 winner on the side-walk (he had come to address the Skoll World Forum for Social Entrepreneurship, and I was an attendee) is one of those examples of "being at the right place at the right time".... last time it happened with me was when I was born :0)